Square Enix certainly doesn’t appear to be hard-up for re-releases these days, especially when it comes to Final Fantasy IV (That’d be Final Fantasy II for you 16-bit old-schoolers out there).
Since the original title’s 1991 state-side release on the Super Nintendo, we’ve had ports for the PlayStation and WonderSwan Color, a partial remake for the Game Boy Advance, and most recently, a full 3D remake last year on the Nintendo DS.
And while generous helpings of Cecil’s epic adventure are usually welcome by RPG fanatics, some of you might still be saying, “That’s nice. But how about a sequel?”
Well Square Enix is finally answering that call with Final Fantasy IV: The After Years.
The After Years is an episodic continuation of Final Fantasy IV available for download on Nintendo’s WiiWare service. The initial chapter is available for 800 Wii Points ($8), with successive chapters being made available thereafter for 300 Wii Points ($3), save for the last episode, which is set to cost 800 Wii Points as well.
The story, which picks up 17 years after the events of original title, is told in multiple “episodes” if you will, much like your traditional TV drama or comic book series. Its recent June 1 release date, which nearly passed us by what with E3 and all, makes available for download the first two episodes of the 9-episode sequel. This marks the first American release for The After Years, which surprisingly enough, debuted last year on Japanese mobile phones to much fanfare (One million downloads in the first five months according to a press release by Square Enix).
Cecil, our main protagonist from the last entry, has been happily married to white mage Rosa, and together they have raised a son, Ceodore, who, while strong-headed and slightly precocious, is unsure if he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps to become a paladin.
The initial chapter takes you through the events of Ceodore’s training to become a knight in the infamous and elite Baron military division, the Red Wings. As our young hero’s journey unfolds, the second moon, thought to have left the solar system in the previous installment, returns, causing much disruption to the hard-achieved tranquility on the blue planet. With it comes the game’s (perhaps initial) antagonist, the Mysterious Girl, a possible Lunarian who wields powerful abilities similar to Rydia’s.
As the Mysterious Girl begins to wreak havoc to the Blue Planet, you get the chance to control several returning as well as new characters in various branching and intersecting paths. The Tarantino-style storytelling may feel a bit disjointed at first, but as game’s events unfold, subtle hints are given as to the connection and potential outcome.
The second installment of The After Years, Rydia’s Tale, follows Rydia’s simultaneous involvements in the Underworld with her apparent longtime friend, Luca, who fans will remember as the son of Dwarven King Giott.
After the Mysterious Girl invades the realm of summoned monsters and petrifies all of its inhabitants, Rydia and Luca set off to uncover the mystery surrounding the event and, ostensibly, find a cure.
As essentially a localized port of a Japanese mobile phone game, the After Years utilizes the Game Boy Advance graphics from the 2005 handheld remake. Pixel for pixel, island for island, nearly every town, dungeon and continent remains just as you remember it, though FF IV veterans will find a few surprises. And for better or for worse, the After Years features the less-spectacular audio of the 2005 remake compared to the superior SNES soundtrack.
While the sequel features many of the same characters, locations, attacks and even spells as the original title, Square has added a few new elements to entice returning Zeromus-slayers.
New to The After Years is a lunar phase feature wherein the four different phases of the moon (full, waxing, waning and new) change each time a full day passes. With each phase comes an increase in one particular stat as well as a consequential decrease in another stat. Whereas a full moon grants increased effectiveness in black magic used and received, it also causes decreased effectiveness in melee attacks. Additionally, certain dungeons bring with them a hard mode that can be activated by journeying through the labyrinths during a specific lunar phase identified by NPCs in game. Out of curiosity I activated one of these hard modes just to have my party two-shot by a Green Dragon.
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You’ll notice that despite providing a full review of the first two episodes, we haven’t provided any sort of score. That’s because despite the initial experience and predictions we can make therefrom, we have only played through approximately 2/9 of the total sequel, and it would simply be irresponsible to generate a score based upon that limited play time. If each episode was simply meant to be a self-contained sequel in and of itself, then perhaps the result would be different.